What is the average life of a labrador retriever

They were Stern about weight control and proper diet. Thanks to all of you who have commented and I somehow am seeking an answer that comes a little too late for Cooper. Somehow we all seem to try to find what we did right and what we did not do to protect our beloved dogs.

My old girl is nearly Thank you for sharing your secrets to keeping your Lab young and healthy. I am right there with you. My black lab mix has been as heavy as …. His old vet is dead but always said…he is just a large dog…new vet has not commented on it. As he recommended , I started him on cosequin DS…….. VET says liver.. He is a little incontinent at times…. I think he is having alittle doggy dementia.

Kinda sad. Eats Fromm……might have to change that now.. Best to all. She flew through surgery and I got to watch. We walk twice a day and she loves to hunt for small animals with her other friend, our mutt named Bella, and they do it together. No flea treatments and a large backyard. We use a flea comb. Thrilled to have my beautiful girl who will turn 16 next May! Do you mind telling me about the tumor on her back leg.

Doc thinks it spread to lung but I wonder about other things. I have a She has a fatty lump on right side of back leg sort of in the doggy groin area.

She gets around and is on galiprant and cosequin. I am surprised they did surgery on a I am amazed she pulled through being put under,,,my dogs seem like a small baseball.. My Male black lab is almost 12, he is starting to slow down but still lives his walks, people are amazed when I tell them he is almost 12, I do give him cod liver oil and a tramadol every day, he has a mixture of wet and dry food, what ever he wants to be honest, if I put wet food down sometimes he turns around so i put dry food down and he will tuck in, he is spoilt rotten but i dont care :.

My red lab Sunny is 12 on December 31st. The vet said he is the healthiest lab she has ever seen at this age. But does not hike anymore, walk to the park and back does him.

I feed him science diet, 1 cup am and pm. Not much human food, unless he pinchrs it! I think the kids have kept him young. He does now sleep a lot and has many bumps and lumps all over him. No cancerous ones. He is due another check up.

Just hope we have him for at least another couple of years. My other lab died at 12, due to lymphoma. Emma, my little yellow Lab is nearly 14 47 lbs enjoys each day. She has arthiritis in her back now so I limit her somewhat she will go like lighting still especilly retreiving She is a very loyal one owner dog. She had total knee surgery TPLO on her one knee when she was 9 months and has had no issues since. This is Donna again letting you know about Summer and how she is doing.

Most days she likes to sleep, but she still loves to eat. She now has a accident in the house maybe once ever 3 months due to hard for her to get around like she used to. She still has spirit and loves us just like we love her. Then there are days you would think she was a pup. She has never been sick and always a great dog and a great friend.

I will always love her in my heart forever and remember how great a person she made me! My sweet yellow dog Lawson will be 16 on January 26, He has a little issue with his back legs, our vet has him on joint vitamins. I hv a chocolate lab tht is al.

He would lay on his side. Walking better. We then waited abt a month, and then gave it to him again. And in less than a week he is up, we play, and I know he is feeling better. Today he was jumping around like a pup! I wish you luck with your doggy. Elton clark. My 14 year old Riley who every now and again has unsteady back legs which only was noticed last summer our Vet prescribed 50 mg Deramaxx, it has worked wonders for her.

When she hears something she still goes flying to the door to check it out. I have always kept her trim feeding only Blue Buffalo. She is my companion and hope she has many more years left. She was 11 years and 7 months old and was in severe kidney failure. Seemed to come on quickly. I had been treating her for hind leg lameness since Sept 8, and she was getting around better with Dasuquin, tramodol, and Rimady. I fed her a home-cooked diet the last year, different high quality kibble before that, and no chemicals on or near her, except for the recent pain meds.

I was so upset that her kidneys failed but the vet said it was probably just genetics or age. She was the best dog and I miss her terribly. My black lab is 17 years old has problems with his back legs but other than that he is very healthy. We only give him dog food and very seldom we give him table food. My first lab was a chocolate named Ben. Great dog and a typical male. He was an escape artist and I spent many hours roaming the block looking for him. Generally found in some neighbors garbage!

He was a rescue at 10 mths and I had him for 12 years. The Program was the flea control of choice back then but he was terribly allergic to the Brewers Yeast in it.

If I stayed away from anything with BY he was great. Never did anything special with him diet wise and he got lots of human food both intentionally and stolen lol. I have a black purebred male and a yellow cross female now. He is 12 and she is They have always gotten mid range food Kirkland, proform, mutt mix whatever is on sale.

I am a firm believer in making sure they have bones to chew regularly and get as much exercise as I can do. We live on a farm so they are out all day, walked morning and night. She has had heart murmurs since a puppy and I was told she would be lucky to make it to 9. She is in really good shape just starting to slow down. He has pretty bad elbow displaysia, had a large cancer lump removed last year and needs thyroid pills 2x day. I know neither has a lot of time left but enjoy it while I can.

They are my buds and will be sorely missed. Daisy is a She joins me on 4K hill hikes at least days a week. I have always feed her high quality grain free food, pumpkin pure. I adopted my Senor Male Chocolate Daunte when he was already nine years old. He ran away from previous owner and then showed up on my front porch. The previous owner a young Fellow probably was not into an older Dog who sleeps a lot. I walk him daily a minimum two miles and feed him Kirkland Dog food and Dentix chews for the teeth.

I get him professional baths twice a year. I now he has few years left to live so I spoil him as best I can. He spends most of the time indoors but has a good sized backyard to play in. Minimal human food but occasional cheese. Daunte is now 13 Years old and our four Year anniversary comes Sept Our Ginger girl was born in the spring of , making her about I used to follow the book as far as flea treatments and shots, but found she would get sick; her knees would bother her and she would get worms.

About 10 years ago, I decided to let nature be in charge. We have a large wooded yard for her to roam in. She has recently gone to soft foods as her teeth are worn down. But she also helps herself to our compost, so does the wildlife in the area, really funny seeing a fawn with an orange stuck to her nose in the winter , as we garden and eat many veggies and fruits. She gets table scraps, including lamb and bison bones, but no processed food. Now, even though she is lumpy and bumpy, and near the end of her life, she still has a smile on her white face.

He was 24 years old. My dad passed in , and we have had him since. My dad got him when my son was 3 years old, he is 27 now. George was a farm dog, and enjoyed everything. He had arthritis these last 5 years — and he was always a large dog weighed 80 lbs but was muscular, not fat. My choc lab has just turned 15 I thought that was good, 24 must be a world record. We have a nearly 14 yr old unspeyed pedigree choc lab.

She still acts , looks and behaves like a puppy. Pet health and nutrition website has great natural products for laryngeal paralysis. They have helped my 14 year old boy a lot! I currently have a lab named Katie that I got as a gift for my 15th birthday from my mother.

She was 5 weeks old exactly when i got her on August 5. She was the runt of the litter. She is by far the smartest dog I ever owned and seems to be able to adapt to any situation and prevail. She became an excellent bird retriever with minimal effort because it come natural to her like it does a lot of labs. But not all. I have seen a bunch of labs that will fetch but not retrieve birds and I swear on my life I personally never seen one that was as good as her that had not been trained by professionals.

I admit tho that professionally trained labs were more obedient than her but I trained her to the best of my knowledge and was still a kid and had no idea how to train a lab. She would even follow whatever direction I pointed at. But unlike a trained dog that will stop when u blow a whistle to see where u point, she would only turn around to get directions from me if there was not a bird or whatever she was searching for where she initially thought it would be.

But she did not come back without it. Which that proved to be problematic at times. So I would have to keep a training dummy with me to throw or I believe she would drown herself searching.

But at 15 the thought of that never crossed my mind while trying to teach her. If it were up to Katie she would already be under the duck as it fell and catch it in mid air. And she was very good at catching things and very very fast on land.

In fact I had to stop throwing a heavy training dummy or sticks for her to fetch and swap strictly to light tennis balls because she was so fast that when I would throw as hard and far as I could it with her at my side, she would make it to the area the ball was going in time to turn around and catch it. That was one of my favorite tricks to show people that she did. But when I stopped throwing the dummy was the day she figured out that she could do that and it almost hurt her.

It was way too heavy to catch in mid air and u could tell it hurt her jaw so I switched to balls. And she knew where every single one was. She somehow figured out that even when people wouldnt throw it anymore from her pouncing and slapping at their feet with both paws they woild, they would when she pinned a super slobbery soaking wet ball to their legs with her paw.

And if u tried to just ignore all of that showmanship she was pulling and go on about your business, next thing u know u felt a super slobbery ball on your hand because she would walk up from behind u and try to stick the ball in your hand lol. I love that old girl but her days of fetching and hunting have been over for several years now because shes 16 and in no shape to do any running but it aint by her choice.

Her back hips give her problems now it seems. We have a girl lab, six years old yellow one, at our home in Japan. She was also born in Japan. She is doing very well now and very healthy. I have a six year old black Labrador dog named Ralph. He has been fine so far but of late he seems to be walking very slowly when we are returning back from our one hour walk. I am worried that there might be some health issues with him.

Do I need to contact my vet. Please any advise would be helpful. When our black Lab Stetson was around the same age he too started to slow down. You should definitely consult your vet before giving any supplements. My ole girl Divey shirt for Godiva is 16 years 4 months. She eats Kirkland mature food at night with salmon oil.

That has really made a difference for her dry skin. We adopted her from the veterinary school research lab when she was 4. We joke they gave her some good stuff there. Duke a black lab with white spot on chest and hind feet now going on 21 started greying around mouth still the fastest dog on the property and catches the odd rabbit once in a while love him to bits.

Wasnt neutered until he was 6 or 7 when he and the other Male started fighting when my dad brought a puppy home. He had twisted kneecaps on both hind legs that kept him from running fast or jumping in anyway. My Chocolate Lab Buddy will be 14 in December. He has been an outside dog. This past winter something happened to him with his breathing and he has a gagging cough. He has a bad habit of covering up his food with straw and I believe he ingested some of it.

Brought him back home expecting to lose him and started handfeeding cooked chicken breast and scooping water in our hands for him to drink. He recovered but breathing is a problem. Yesterday was just 84 here in Ky and little humid.

Husband found him foaming and purple tongue so we think he suffered a heat stroke because of poor breathing. So, now he is in his huge winter kennel in home with us with central air and fan blowing on him. Breathing much better. His back hips are starting to go and has trouble getting up and walking.

Love our Buddy! We got our girl Princess from Lab Rescue never changed her name ; just before her 5th birthday. She will be 16 on the 4th of July this year. She is extremely healthy to this day. Only issues are an arthritic lower back that has weakened her back legs, cataracts, and some hearing loss. She has been through a lot—mostly brought on by relentless counter surfing. She once ate an entire bag of raw potatoes, she has eaten loaves of bread in the plastic, even coffee grounds.

Several times she broke into the trash and ate chicken carcasses. She has never been sick other than one UTI, and never had surgery, other than being spade. We were told she had birthed a litter of puppies before we got her. Labrador retrievers are known for a tendency to eat more than they need to, possibly because of a genetic predisposition. This leads to significant orthopedic problems like elbow and hip dysplasia.

Otitis externa is inflammation of the external ear canal. It causes pain and makes ear infections likely. The frequency of this condition is determined, in part, by the color of Labs. Around A whopping The most common type of degenerative joint disease affecting Labradors is hip dysplasia and arthritis.

As your dog ages, the cartilage around the joints deteriorates, allowing the bones to rub together and causing inflammation and pain. Some dogs even have the cartilage split away from the bone and lose some movement in the joint. Arthritis develops as the bones rub together over time. The disease is most common in obese dogs but can also occur in dogs who have a healthy weight. I urge all dog owners to use all resources available to them when it comes to caring for their babies.

I highly recommend Embark for DNA testing due to their reputation and thoroughness. Labrador retrievers are particularly susceptible to cancer. Dogs who have two copies of the risk factor gene are three to four times more likely to develop a mast cell tumor. This means that as many as one in four dogs will be actively affected by cancer in their lifetime.

Now that these genes have been recognized, responsible breeders are making an effort to eliminate their prevalence in their lines, but at this time it is still very likely for a Labrador to get cancer at some point in its life. The oldest purebred Labrador on record was known as Adjutant. But new research suggests that potential owners should look past their color and focus on overall health when choosing a pup.

Chocolate Labrador retrievers live significantly shorter lives than other labs, a finding that surprised researchers from Sydney and London who studied more than 33, British veterinary records from the breed. Dogs with yellow or black coats live about 10 percent longer than their chocolate counterparts, according the study , published in Canine Genetics and Epidemiology on Monday.

The median longevity for all labs is about 12 years, while the median age for chocolate labs was Overall, Labrador retrievers are still one of the longest-living dog breeds, reported another recent study. Learn more about breeds in "How to Build a Dog. But compared with other labs, chocolate labs appeared to suffer certain non-life-threatening ailments more frequently. This doesn't necessarily mean that the pigment genes are linked to a shorter lifespan, researchers caution.

The chocolate color is a recessive trait, meaning that to produce a chocolate lab puppy, both parents must have the gene that produces the color. Related: Why Siberian huskies have those beautiful blue eyes. This narrows the gene pool and may result in a higher proportion of genes conducive to ear and skin conditions, he said, and could ultimately affect longevity.

These are self-inflicted wounds caused when the dog reacts to irritation from pests such as fleas or lice, or from being trimmed with clippers. Coat color has previously been linked with health in some animals.

For example, some researchers suspect that the gene that causes black fur in wolves could also be related to reducing inflammation and fighting infection. The researchers noted that coat color in some dog breeds has been associated with aggression, as well as markers for higher rates of deafness and blindness. Overall, labs were also one of the most obese dog breeds, the study found. Nearly nine percent of the U.